


No Language Left to Say it

by hideyourfires



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M, Idiots in Love, Pining, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-07-12
Packaged: 2020-06-26 22:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19778143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hideyourfires/pseuds/hideyourfires
Summary: Qunari don't love, but dwarves do. It doesn't matter until the door closes behind him.





	No Language Left to Say it

Qunari don't love, and Kindra knows it. They fuck. She knows that, too. (And _oh_ , how she knows it.) Qunari don't love, and she knows it.

But dwarves do. (At least, she is fairly certain they do. She has only known carta dwarves, and there was no love amongst them. She is fairly certain Varric loves, if not only his crossbow.) And if dwarves don't, Kindra does. She knows, because she has felt it.

Qunari don't love, but it seems dwarves do, and that discrepancy doesn't matter much at all until Bull is sitting up, pulling his trousers, his boots, back on, until he is heading out of the door. Until the door closes behind him.

When the door closes behind him, it suddenly matters a lot.

Qunari are large, and dwarves are small. That is another discrepancy she becomes suddenly all too aware of after the door has closed, after she sits in her fit-for-royalty sized bed staring in its direction. She is small, and the bed is emptier now than it was when she first slept in it. Then, she had slept. Now, she would be sleeping _alone_. There shouldn't be a difference, but there is. She knows because she can feel it.

She wonders if he can feel it. The difference, that is. If he can feel her loving him, and feel himself not loving her back. If she is so small he forgets her when he lies in his bed. If he welcomes the extra space. If there is any space at all.

She wonders how she can be so small and so full of love. It's big enough for all of him, and there is a lot of him. He takes up a lot of space. Spreads his knees pretty far when he sits (mostly, she imagines, because the chairs here are so small) and takes up most of the bed. His laugh is loud, and it rings in her head for days. Cassandra had been talking to her, once, and she hadn't taken in a word. She hadn't the space. He takes up such an awful lot of space.

And she takes up so little.

It's in who they are, in the way they were raised, in their blood. That's all. Qunari and dwarves are different.

Dwarven, for example, despite being a dying language, foreign even to her tongue - the few words she does know are _kalnath_. Family. _Salroka_. Friend.

There are no such words in Qunlat. There is no language for it, because it doesn't exist. (It doesn't exist, because there is no language for it.)

She wonders if she should learn such a language. If, under the Qun, she might be happy. If, without space for love, she might not feel its absence.

She finds herself wondering a lot lately. When Bull sees the far away look in her eyes, he says, "Something on your mind, kadan?"

She doesn't ask what it means. He's been saying it for weeks now. She has given up on Qunlat.

Kindra says, "Nothing that matters."

It doesn't matter. When he's there, beside her, it doesn't matter.

It's only when he leaves.


End file.
